Wednesday, June 25, 2008

What is the next turnmoil in world economy- Water???

It has been money( subprime crisis).. so money is ruled out
It has been crude($140/barrel).... it will continue... ruled out

Water- Maybe yes.... With depleting water tables and high pollution of natural resources, very soon water will be the reason for next world crisis.

Its high time we as an individual step forward and ensure that atleast each one of will not waste water. Even with simple steps, we can save lot amount of water in our daily use

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Nano Effect

Tata Nano- A revolution.. yes i feel so.
Reason- Post Nano , all major car makers have announced investment in sub $3000 cars including likes of Nissan, GM and even Merc.
Indian govt has already increases excise duty on cars above 1500cc.
India fast becoming auto-component sourcing hub
Indian design center buzzing with increased headcount and global majors investing heavily in R&D centres in India
Tata is the only auto company in the world to have complete end-to-end product..right from Nano to JLR/LC

Global Environment Awareness

With global warming started showing danger signals, countries are making keen investment to save environment.
Latest is China- They have decided to control number of mountaineers climbing on Mt Everest every year. With 1000s of climber taking on the peak, Mt Everest is witnessing pollution which is leading to fast melting of glacier. China now will be issuing permits to limited climbers every year.

Lehman Brothers- Next Bear Stearns?

US financial body Fed is trying its level best to avoid another bear stearns by pushing Lehman Brothers struggle and overcome their losses. Read this in businessweek recently!!!
Well , Lehman bet on mortgage business has taken them into bad debt and now they are next bear stearns in making. Fed however is trying best to avoid this situation since that would take away all the trust from i-bank world.
Although, Lehman is smallest of top10 i-banks, its fallout could further worsen the global economy through ripple effects

Monday, June 23, 2008

Global Inflation riding on the bull now

Inflation- Thats a global word now.
China, India are feeling most pressure from it and fighting to cool it down from double digit figure to sub 5% levels. With rising crude prices and OPEC not in mood to increase demand, I guess these two emerging markets will have to struggle for some more time with Inflation numbers.
Western markets too are feeling the pinch now, people in west are reducing their long drives and expenditures.
Interesting thing however is that dreaded word "Recession" is no more heard. There is still sense of optimism in global market of things recovering back in medium term and everything will be alright.
I feel too there are chances of the above facts. OPEC meeting last sunday resulted in divided views by members which means crude is soon going to see correction in prices. Saudi and Kuwait are pro-demand increase so as to fill the demand-supply gap.

Sunday, June 22, 2008

Barrel Effect in US - Drop in traffic jams

US freeways and driveways are anyones delight. And if you get cheap gas and powerful gas guffling SUVs, it can be one of the best experiences. Personally I am a speed and car freak. I too got a chance to drive around pontiac in US and was excited to vrrooom of engine.
But now with soaring gas prices as high as $4/gallon, US surely has put gentle accelerator on driving.
As per one report, there has been a considerable drop in traffic density is US. With highest being in Washigton area of 4.4%, west coast is down by 2.8%, East Coast - 1.4% and 1.8% in great lakes area.
This phenomenon is also following suite in other parts of World too, there has been steps with the oil price rise this time. There will be surely acceleration in efforts by researcher to come up with energy efficient and different source of energy for automobiles.
India too has electric run Reva which has got good ratings, but I think the company can very wel cash on this oopy with price rise to really increase its sales.

Friday, June 06, 2008

Blanket ban on shopping plastic bag in China

Sometimes it is good how communist form of govt can really benefit country and environment..China has imposed complete ban on plastic bags from June 1,2008.
World Environment Day should give some thought to Indian govt to think about this option in India too. I would say we should promote jute made bags since they are enviromently friendly and also promote employment oppys.

Wednesday, June 04, 2008

Telcos growing across boundaries

Where will be next billion subscribers coming from?

As an execution step towards the answer, telcos are all set with cross boundaries growth.

AT&T, one of the early entrant in Indian market made a decent profit of around $250mn after selling its stake in Idea back in early millenium. Thats a different story that current value of same stake is more than $2billion.

AT&T is standing right there waiting for its chance to enter Indian market again. Phenomenon of strong Indian telecom story is definately attracting major player across geography.
The reason is beyond just putting its dot in emerging market map. It is about getting balance sheet strong by matching up slow growth in current geography with fast emerging market for players in saturated market.For emerging market player, it is more to quench their thirst for larger play and ambitious plans.
With Middle east too witnessing fast growth in telecom sector after recent liberisation by the government, players in those region have realised the importance of moving out from reginal shell and spread its business in similar markets.
Etisilat recently confirmed its plan to enter Indian market through an Indian player, it is already in talks with Spice Communications, Datacom to name a few.
Also, there has been lot of unseen synergy which players like MTN and Reliance are working on, after Bharti opted out of race for MTN.

Similarly, players in middle east are actively working on buying stake in Indian wireless players and new greenfield players. This reaction from Middle east players came into picture after Vodafone's strategic acquisition of Hutch India to get emerging market as part of its growth plan. Major players like MTN, Qatar Telecom , Etisilat are all eyeing pie in Indian market since their hoem market will soon start witnessing lot of comeptition from new players. It becomes very important to open international strategy to make sure revenue dependency is not region focused.
Interest developed by middle east players in India and vice versa has opened one more dimension of growing business attractions between middle east and India for telecom landscape. This is an exciting step since it was not predicted or talked about option.
Major telco like Bharti and Reliance have been trying continously to enter Middle east market. They have been trying by bidding for licences but in vain. So now, they see ruote through mergers and acquisition as the best way to spread their expansion plans.
With western players actively eyeing Indian market, middle east players working aggresively to move out from regional shell and Indian players working on their global expansion plans, Telecom landscape is clearly geting more eventful and exciting.

Oil..Oil...Oil.. That is latest news in every circle

Today crude is trading at $130 and see no sign of retreat to lower number. OPEC still claims that they see no problem in supply-demand gap, whereas countires across globe are witnessing huge oil crisis.Most effected are ofcourse emerging nations like India and China. Commodity is highly dependant on oil prices since majority of tranportations means are based on oil and slight increase in oil results in a direct propotionate hit on inflation numbers.
Analyst say that they see some corrective measures coming into picture by year end, and that crude should be down to $80/barrell price.
Now, what has to be seen if how economies are going to take the balanced approach to minimise the impact of crude hit

Monday, June 02, 2008

Next rulers in Corporate world!!!

What is the next driving factor for corporate growth.... is it just corporate strategy and organisations who blindly put people after it without taking care about employees interest....
or
Second- innovative corporate strategy which leads the organisation with people along with it and use employees strength areas as the tool.
I feel the latter.. and this is thought is somewhat similar to what I read in one of Tom Peters book Re-Imagine.
Employees and HR is the next big area which can play as game maker or game broker in corporate strategy world. As well and done on boardroom presentations can go to dumps if right execution of keeping employees motivated is not done.
It is a truth that company priority is to maximise shareholder value but this is often assumed that shareholders are only one who are their buying stocks. THe goal then becomes to make them rich.And in this process, the main shareholders or the real executors "the employees" are least cared of.
Past 2 decade might have seen some companies flourishing only through corporate strategy but coming two decade will only favour those organisations which will move priority to make their employees rich and happy only as a logical step to make their shareholders happy.

Sunday, June 01, 2008

Solution Accelerator- New face of service delivery model for telcos

Fast changing Telecom world has resulted in new challenges for telcos worldwide. With shirking business boundaries and growing customer expectations, telcos need to not only adopt to new scenario but also keep their customers and shareholders happy.The challenge is finally ending up with business systems of telcos to match the growth.

Solution accelerator is the saviour here for telcos. As Forrester defines it Solution Accelerators is "Pre-developed software that is used by the IT services firm to automate a particular business process or aspect of product development where 30% to 70% of the code can be reused across clients." (Source: Forrester)
Previously, it was simple integration of products which was considered to the answers for telcos problem. But it has been realised that besides just simple integration, business processes have major play in the whole game.To establish faster RoI and increase satisfaction, setting up right business processes is equally important along with right integration of product.
Patni recently launched one such and first marketready offering for communications service providers to set up core customer- and partner-facing business processes under one consolidated operational model.

Patni atoms™ process-centric platform is designed for providers needing to provision new converged services. In the case of a start-up operator in high growth markets, atoms™ enables the licensing of the systems required to ramp up service delivery in a short period of time. The Patni atoms™ platform also accelerates the business transformation program for existing operators and provides a blueprint for future operating models. As providers start using Patni atoms™, the whole community of userscan share in the resulting enhanced packaged solution. Patni recently acquired intellectual property from Carphone Warehouse that formed the basis of atoms™.

Patni atoms is already running live with their customer which has also quoted about its enhanced capablilities.

“It’s critical for us to respond rapidly in the entrepreneurial business we are in and the solution we have co-created has enabled us to complete the first phase of our planned roll out at Carphone Warehouse. As the co-creators of Patni atoms™ we have been delighted to have played our part in what is undoubtedly a quantum step forwards in the evolution of telecoms industry operations,” said Simon Post, Chief Technology Officer of Carphone Warehouse. “The solution will be instrumental in allowing us to manage rapid growth in both business scope and scale whilst underpinning our successful business transformation.”

With telcos and media companies expecting to save 15-18% of overall project costs and and expecting to change sourcing scenario from typical offshore advantage game from ‘Time & material’ to ‘Value Pricing’, this space is definately heating up for lots of action.